Tranmere Rovers FC has applied for planning permission to build up to 50 homes on part of its car park at Prenton Park.

The football club has submitted a planning application to Wirral council for the housing development on three acres of its land behind the Bebington Kop stand.

The site covers around two thirds of the current car park around the ground as well as a vacant van sale site facing Borough Road.

The development would also involve a number of buildings behind the stand being bulldozed, including a social club, function room and an indoor training facility which houses community and education projects run in association with the club.

In a supporting document lodged with the plans, the Wirral club’s chief executive Mick Horton says the buildings affected are “generally in poor or very poor condition”.

He said the club intends to relocate facilities lost to the development at the club’s proposed new training facility [at Woodchurch leisure centre] or within the existing accommodation at Prenton Park.

Mr Horton states: “The car parking area in question has been surplus to requirements for some considerable time and the remaining car park spaces are adequate for our matchday and non-matchday use.

“The former van sale site has been vacant for some years.”

Last October Wirral council approved a controversial bid by the club to build 90 homes on its nearby Ingleborough Road playing fields, along with a linked application to redevelop the council-owned Woodchurch leisure centre as the club’s new training complex.

But the project has faced a number of delays.

Campaigners fought the Ingleborough scheme saying the site – a former playing field for the Birkenhead Institute school – had been left as a memorial to 88 pupils including the poet Wilfred Owen who died in World War I.

After the project was approved it was stalled further while Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, decided whether he would “call-in” the application for scrutiny, which he decided against doing.

Wirral council has stated that the Woodchurch Leisure Centre project, which will also include facilities to be shared with the community, must be completed before the Ingleborough housing development can be built.